


The Line Between Siege and Surrender

by SquirrellyThief



Series: Post-TLJ Character Works [2]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Hux is bad at coping, I apologize in advance, M/M, Mental Illness, Referenced Child Abuse, References to other terrible shit, Ren and Phasma aren't very good at helping either, Self-Harm, Undertagged, because Brendol is a monster, i wrote another one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-27 14:17:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13249989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SquirrellyThief/pseuds/SquirrellyThief
Summary: "Hux had been out a cycle, nothing had happened on the ship, and he was to take three days of medical leave and follow the orders of whatever physician came to check on him."Or: Ren locks Hux in a room with nothing but his personal demons for company for seventy-two hours.





	The Line Between Siege and Surrender

**Sixty-five hours, approximately three minutes remaining.**

The tile of the refresher floor was cool against his burning cheek when he finally relented in the fight to stay sitting upright. His stomach kept doing somersaults, the muscles in his abdomen moving of their own accord to try to keep it in line, but there was nothing to jar loose anymore. Stars, he just wanted to go back to sleep. Deep, difficult sleep; impossible-to-wake-from sleep. Anything but this.

He gulped down a lungful of air, but still felt like he was holding his breath

Of all the punishments Ren could have exacted upon him for the first act of cowardice of his storied military career, Hux had to admit this was the most effective. He felt like he was spinning. The room was spinning. And there was nothing to hold on to and he was just half a second shy of slamming into the wall, but contact never came.

When Ren had left him, alone and confused, curled up near his pillow hours ago, Hux’s mouth had tasted like almonds and activated carbon. Bitter, gritty on the back of the tongue, but not the most unpleasant coating his mouth had ever sported. His teeth had felt fuzzy when he’d run his tongue over them and he tried to focus on that instead of the pounding in his head or the whirr of his heart.

Hux had tried to force himself to his feet. Get dressed. Shower. Shave. Return to normalcy. Everything was fine now. It had passed. He could get back to work. _Medical leave._ Who did Ren think he-

No. Stop. That was a line of thought he didn’t need to be having right now.

His knees buckled as soon as he put any weight on them and he was forced to sit back down. His arms braced on either side of him on the bed, blankets tangled around his waist. Across the short expanse, he could see his reflection staring back at him. Or, he assumed it was his reflection. The doors of his closet were mirrored, he knew this fact, even if he didn’t recognize the person he saw in them as himself. It was someone else staring him down as if Hux had betrayed him. Had _failed_ him, personally. He just didn’t _want_ to. He had never wanted to look at that man again. He couldn’t even do _this_ right and felt like hard boot stomping on the soft space between his lower ribs and his hip over and over again no matter how tightly he curled in on himself.

Hux, presently, took a deep breath through his nose. The smell of industrial disinfectant and his own stomach acid arguing over which was more offensive to the olfactory senses. He decided both were equally bad and shut his eyes, just to stop them from burning. They refused to stay closed; pink fireworks going off behind his too-thin lids.

Ren’s orders had been effective immediately, Hux found out. The medics showed up five minutes after Ren had left and gave him a long list of things to do and not do while on medical leave. Bed rest, they said, would be best. He was also given a special, strict diet to adhere to which, blessed be the makers, did not deny him his tea. It did, however, cut out all other caffeine until they got his heart rate under control. His pulse had been somewhere in the low hundreds when they’d arrived and only spiked higher as this whole thing became more cemented in reality. They had responded with reassurances  that anxiety was normal after what he’d been through. Hux had to bite the inside of his cheek as they replaced the vials on his monitor with things more useful to his condition: a sedative, something for his blood pressure, a mood elevator, an anti-convulsant (which struck him as odd, but he was in no position to question it) and whatever they’d given him for the poisoning. They’d tried to give him names and dosages, scenarios in which the monitor would distribute the medication, but he’d stopped listening by that point.

They’d poked and prodded him. Asked him questions he only heard the ending phrases of. There were so many. Hux wasn’t sure how to answer them now that honesty wasn’t on the table. Ren hadn’t told them the poisoning was intentional. Had covered it so well that no one even seemed to suspect. Had demanded he not go to reconditioning for it.

_What the fuck, Ren?_

Hux had stared off into space, contemplating, his mind circling back to the fact that Ren had _kissed_ him. The way he’d stared Hux down when the general had tried to decide his own punishment. The medics finally let themselves out realizing Hux was still too out of it to answer to them.

The monitor in his forearm beeped; his pulse was too high, again. He’d need to get it down if he didn’t want the medics to come back and catch him like this; curled up on the tile floor like some kind of madman. He needed to get his shit together, but he just wasn’t coming back down. Usually when he clawed up the walls like this he drifted back after a few minutes but- Had it been a few minutes? Hux couldn’t tell. His chrono was in the other room, out of sight now. He tried breathe, but it was too much too fast and he was left coughing and retching spit onto the floor.

It had taken him a few tries, but Hux had finally managed to get out of bed shortly after the medics left. If he used the wall to help support his weight it was easier, his limbs not quite as awake as the rest of him yet. He’d dug through his closet for a set of comfortable sleep clothes and warm socks. The socks had the added benefit of allowing him to use momentum to slide across the smooth, polished floor instead of having to use protesting muscles to walk.

He’d gone to the refresher first; not wanting to see what Ren had done to his office while he was sleeping just yet. He leaned over the sink, elbows locked to brace himself on the thin grey counter. The short search and travel had winded him. Or was it his heart rate? Both? He couldn’t be sure anymore not while the room was getting darker and his reflection was little more than a blurred mass of shadow in the dark room. Relaxing his arms, he bent over the sink, elbows resting on the raised edge of the basin at an angle the jarred the nerves in his arms and made his hands ache. A few mouthfuls of room temp, chlorine and carbon filtered water later and he felt a little less disgusting. A little more human again. The fuzz on his teeth was gone.

A droid had left a covered tray of food on his desk at some point. He saw it when he finally forced himself to come back out. He wouldn’t have even noticed it was there if there hadn’t been a _black monstrosity_ in his office where _his_ desk should have been. Rage carried him into the office space to find out that his sofa was also gone.

“What the fuck,” he’d whispered with as much feeling as his poor, battered heart could muster to the empty room. Because of course. Of _course_ the last of his few possessions would be destroyed by _Kylo goddamn-son-of-the-New-Republic Ren_.

Hux rolled onto his back and looked up at the ceiling of his refresher, taking deep breaths and holding them. He forced his heart to slow down if it wanted to spread oxygen to his body effectively. He felt a burning in his forearm.

Hux had plopped himself in the chair and pulled the tray closer. Still warm. The main compartment was filled with the typical starchy hot grain porridge that they’d served in the mess halls for so many years Hux was certain his father had grown up on it. He’d smelled spices; warm, earthy things he couldn’t drum up the names to just yet, but knew would come to him later. There was a sweet, tacky yeast roll with it, an insulated cup filled with steeping tea instead of his usual caf, a few packs of sweetener, a glass of water. He picked at the roll first; chewy and citrusy just like he’d remembered them. The first few bites reminded him that he hadn’t eaten anything in a day. Hadn’t eaten a hot meal in over a week.

All pretense of dignity had fled him then and he tucked in. The way he had as a child never quite allowed to eat his fill at any meal. Back then, he’d passed off pieces to the other kids, the stronger kids, in acts of good faith; trading his hunger for boons and protection. He didn’t need such things now, but the behaviors remained when he didn’t consciously conceal them. Pieces were pushed around, stalled upon, even though there was no one else around to observe.

He had downed the last bite, reached for his tea, and that was when it hit him. All at once and suddenly, like someone had snuck up on him but only missed a swing aimed for his head by the slimmest of margins. What he’d done, that Ren had _seen_ it and saved him from himself. The whole crew was bound to know sooner or later. Not that it mattered. _Ren_ knew. _Ren_ had seen that moment of fear, that oh so close to permanent moment of weakness. Now Hux was going to not only live through it, but have to face him again. This black mark forever etched into his face, plain as day, for the man that had so tainted his very existence to see and mock him for.

Deep breaths through the nose and a gulp of water had only served to buy him time to get across his quarters and not have to call for the cleaning droids. But just barely if the new bruises on his knees were anything to go by. Luckily bland breakfast food hurt about as much coming back up as it did going down in the first place.

Still on the floor, Hux’s monitor stopped beeping. He felt light-headed and a little fluttery all over, like he was floating on empty air. Despite the sudden lack-of-floor that feeling of imminent impact had dissolved and he could breathe again.

Hopefully it would last this time.

*~*~*

 

**Fifty-nine hours, forty-five minutes remaining.**

Supreme Leader Ren had decreed Hux be a prisoner on his own ship. Though not in so many words. If only he applied so deft and discrete a hand to all his work, Hux mused, desperately trying to figure out the security code for his door only to have it beep and flash angrily at him for being too stupid to know the new override.

According to the medics’ list, Ren had, explicitly and on threat of severe punishment for anyone that subverted the order, said that Hux was not allowed to work while on medical leave. _At all_. When he asked the medics why (he was still capable, his mind still sharp even if his body hadn’t fully recovered from the poisoning. There was no reason why he couldn’t-) they said that it hadn’t just been the poison that had put him on the floor, but stress and sleep deprivation.

Which, damn every last one of them, was true.

So that meant on the list of things Hux wasn’t allowed to do, leaving was at the top because even being in proximity of the bridge meant he’d be working. It also meant he didn’t have access to his office terminal; an easy enough thing to enforce since it had been destroyed with his desk (thank you for that Kylo Ren). His comm had been disconnected from the network except for two places: the medbay to make requests and Ren’s personal comm. And he sure as fuck wasn’t going to contact Ren. He was fairly certain Ren wouldn’t answer if he called anyway. His datapad had fucked off somewhere. Either the medics had taken it on orders or Ren had, both options meant he wasn’t getting it back anytime soon.

Ren had also told the medical team assigned to Hux (a four-man crew, one for each shift and one supervisor) that Hux had been jumpy and agitated upon waking and that he would be a bit of a danger until his nerves were settled. A decree which had led to the confiscation of every potential weapon in his room; including his razor and cigarette lighter on the off chance Hux lashed out at the wrong person. And they truly believed he might by the sound of things.

Hux, in a desperate bid for some good news when the medics checked in, asked after Phasma. It wasn’t work to see how a colleague was faring in her own recovery, he’d argued, they could tell him that much. The looks of pity stung, but they told him she was out of the medbay and testing out the new leg for calibrations and her vision was improving. She’d return to work shortly after he was scheduled back.

That pulled some of the weight out of his chest. Phasma was okay. The medics were calm, which meant the ship _probably_ wasn’t on fire without him. Then again, calm under fire was what the medics were trained for.

Hux often wound up on the floor, ear pressed to the locked door leading to the outside corridor, just listening. He heard the all-too-familiar click of stormtrooper boots over the hum of the engine rattling through the walls. Occasionally he’d catch bits of conversation; nothing pressing, not even all that interesting really, but it was better than staring at the wall in silence.

Hux wondered if Ren could hear his distress. Wondered if he was reveling in it, entertained, the sick bastard. The general let his thoughts drift to insults aimed at the man. Some legitimate, others just plain petty, and the worst of them treasonous and damning. Ren complained so often that Hux was thinking too loud in his default state, he wondered if something like this would be akin to shouting at him. Maybe –just maybe—he could think the wrong thing and set off Ren’s hair trigger temper at a distance. And maybe he could have this whole thing end indefinitely; painful and drawn out though that ending might be.

The seconds dragged by, time unspooling like thread in a broken sewing machine and just collecting in heaps and tangles of minutes beside him. No skittering stormtroopers. No invisible bands around his neck or cords knotting in his body to drag him from one point to another. No electric charge in the air that usually accompanied Ren’s untethered fury. Either he wasn’t listening, or he was on to Hux’s plan and was refusing to give in to him. Probably the former since Ren wasn’t likely to miss an opportunity to torment him.

Hux knocked the back of his head against the door, forcing himself to focus. What the hell did Ren expect him to do for three days? Sleep? He laughed at the notion, noise echoing a little on the empty walls. No. That was too kind. Ren wanted him to wait. To listen and hear nothing but silence. To know that his ship, his crew, the Order entire didn’t need him and be certain of it without the soothing balm of freedom. Nailed to the wall, trapped behind a window, watching life move on and knowing, beyond doubts now, that his role in it was so insignificant he would only be noticed insofar as the space he had once occupied was now empty.

_A waste of time._ _Useless._

He dug his nails into his palms, feeling their edges catch, then scraped his middle and ring fingers outward. A steady, repetitive motion timed with the thrum of his pulse in his ears. The first few passes never really hurt all that much, just mildly unpleasant for the positions it put his hands in. Every six passes he’d check his nails, the pause giving his nerves time to register what was happening. It usually took a while to break skin now, his palms so scarred over in the usual places. But, eventually the telltale red brown sludge would collect over pink and white. The burn would become a tangible, bright thing on his skin. It felt like holding a ball of electricity; the prickling, crackly feeling winding up his nerves and into his heart, staggering it, taking control of it, forcing it to be steady. Then, he’d have to focus on treating the burns before they could turn yellow and slick. He’d get up. He’d run them under water a while.

Hux didn’t move.

He’d get to it.

For now, he just scrubbed the brown off his nails with the pads of his thumbs, bending his hands in a way that would aggravate the scratches. The blood smeared into the cracks in the shiny varnish. Hux, incensed, picked at his nails, trying to get the color uniform again, tearing the white crescents in the process. He bit at the tears to even them out. A chemical bitterness and a silent, white-hot burn erupted against the inside of his lower lip and spread across his mouth like it was kindling.

“Biting your nails is uncivilized,” he remembered Sloane scolding him after slapping his shoulder to jar him to attention. He’d been six, coming apart at the seams over some triviality that Brendol was breathing down his neck about. He couldn’t remember the particulars. “Stop that.”

“Yes sir.” Armitage had sat on his hands and ground his teeth instead until his jaw ached and his temples throbbed.

She’d scowled down at him, sometime later or perhaps on a separate occasion entirely; apparently his obedience wasn’t the type she’d wanted. Her forceful, “My office, now,” had nearly scared the boy out of his skin. Sloane was supposed to be on his side. She’d been his ally. Why was she doing this? “Did I stutter?” she’d said when he hesitated, picking at his hands, rooted to the spot. “Get a move on.”

Armitage, resigned to his fate, had followed, did as he was ordered when Sloane said: “Sit. Hands on the desk, flat, palms down.” He closed his eyes. He’d discovered it hurt less that way. When he couldn’t see them rear back for a second, third, fourth blow. He heard a drawer open and flinched when it slammed shut on its automatic rollers. He took a deep breath through his nose to brace himself.

Something cold brushed against the cuticle of his right index finger.  “Up,” Sloane said, snapping the fingers of her free hand when he cracked open his eyes. Numb, he’d done as instructed. He followed Sloane’s hand with his eyes. She’d taken off her gloves, her calloused palm warm against his scratched and blistered fingers. A small black brush painted a clear oil on what was left of his nails.

“Varnish?” he found his voice again when she’d turned his hand to get at his thumb.

Sloane hummed affirmatively, dipping the brush into its bottle for a second pass. “It will train you to stop.”

Armitage looked at the bottle, confused, but the label had been peeled off. “How?”

“It’s bitter.” She released his right hand and pointed at the desk. “Flat. If you screw it up, I’m not giving you another shot.” Armitage complied and lifted his left hand when she gestured to it. “And,” she continued, voice drawling as she spoke and focused at the same time, trying to avoid the bright red borders of sensitive, exposed nail beds, “it’ll light your mouth up.”

Armitage stiffened. If Brendol knew he-

Sloane’s lips quirked up, “Not literally, son. Like a burn. You’ll see next time it happens.”

“I’m not your son,” he said, dark and bitter even for his high, small voice. He hadn’t meant to say it out loud, such defiance was too dangerous. The look on Sloane’s face when it reached her ears was enough to make Armitage’s heart stop. He tensed, the instinct to flee too strong for his tiny body to control yet. Her grip on his hand tightened, reminding him that she was bigger, stronger, faster; he wouldn’t stand a chance if he ran.

And then she started laughing. Not the same vicious, mocking laughter Brendol used, but lighter. Youthful. Something Armitage remembered hearing before but couldn’t have described how or when or from whom, but it made his face burn and his jaw tighten as something tried to surge up his throat and out from behind his eyes.

“You’ve got me there.” She said, smile falling a little when she looked at his face. She continued her work in silence, strong hands moving efficiently around his more delicate ones. Occasionally, a bristle brushed and open cut and he felt the sting up his entire arm. Only Sloane’s grip on his hand stopped him from reflexively pulling away. She gave all of his nails a second coat then ordered him to keep his hands flat on her desk until she told him to move.

“Why?”

“Because if you move,” Sloane said with a patience Armitage had envied and Hux sought to emulate in later life, “It’ll smudge.”

Armitage shook his head, subtle and minute for such a young child. “Why do this?” He drummed his fingers. “Brendol would just scold me.”

Sloane arched a brow at him and Armitage feared she’d make him elaborate. She didn’t. She knew. She’d known for years. “Scolding you for something you do unconsciously won’t help. You can’t correct conditioned behavior until you see it. But once you notice it, you can train it away.” A smirk tried to tug at the corners of her mouth; she didn’t let it, but he saw the attempt. “Can’t you?”

Armitage nodded, “Yes, sir.”

“That’s what I thought.” And Armitage preened under Sloane’s little assurance, that little sign of faith, confident he could kick the habit now.

There wasn’t any white on Hux’s nails left. The burn had spread to his nose and down his throat but it was easy to ignore. The pain never lasted long, fading after a few swallows.

He pushed himself up to his feet, palm sticking to the floor, and made his way to the refresher.

*~*~*

**Fifty-three hours, sixteen minutes remaining.**

Hux kept his quarters dark. If the medics thought it was a problem, they didn’t tell Hux. Mirrored surfaces were easier to avoid when it was dark.

Before his little stint with imprisonment, Hux was barely in his quarters. His time in front of mirrors was spent in his daily routine and nothing more; he’d shave, scrub his face, comb his hair, check the lines of his uniform, and be out and about before any of the images had time to linger.

But now, with few other options but to stare at himself, Hux started to see the details he’d so vehemently avoided since Starkiller. In the large mirror, he saw proportions. He’d lost so much weight, his shoulders had started their inward little hunch from when he was a boy always trying to make himself smaller and harder to notice. He barely recognized himself, aside from his coloring, almost like he was looking through a window at poorly made clone instead of a unique, individual person.

Up close, in the refresher mirror, it was so much worse. His hair was limp in his eyes, darkened a bit by oil. Everything was either bruising and hyperpigmentation or washed out to nothing there was no middle ground. At certain angles he could have sworn his skin was nearly translucent enough to see the muscles and nerves, hard lines and wiring, beneath. 

The burns on his palms had been treated with bacta strips; he didn’t even try to hide them from the medics and when they asked he just didn’t answer. Didn’t answer when they asked him about new symptoms. Didn’t want to admit to the headaches, the sharp pains in his neck and shoulders, the stiff cracking of his joints, and the way his eyes _burned_ as if someone had come and replaced his tears with battery acid. Instead peppering them with questions of his own, most of them unwise for the medics to answer and pointedly ignoring their glassy-eyed looks and prolonged typing spells.

*~*~*

**Forty-seven hours, ten minutes remaining.**

Sleep was good for him, the medics had said. Their list of things for him to do had had sleep at the top, eating a close second. It would help his nerves and his stomach settle, they said. It would make the time pass quicker, they said. They could give him something to help him if sleeping was an issue, they said.

To the last one, Hux had said no.

Hux burned his hours pacing, despite his low blood sugar making his head spin. Eating was still proving to be a challenge, his appetite dissolved and his palette changed so much since Starkiller. Everything they sent tasted like wet paper and stuck between his teeth and under his tongue. He picked at it just enough to stop his stomach’s complaining, and counteracted the rest with extra sugar in his tea.

The cleaning droids and their BB-9E leader broke up some of the isolated feeling when they swept in; all efficient beeps and the soft spinning hum of their inner workings. Once, he put himself in their way and forced them to go around him until the beeps turned belligerent and even then they were gone too soon.

He practiced speeches; not big ones, not even inspiring ones, just the things he would say to people when they asked him what had happened. Where he had been. He tried to make everything passable, plausible, beyond question. How he would handle the other commanders, Captain Opan, Lieutenant Mitaka, or Phasma. Hell, even Ren got an hour of his time, but that discussion had dissolved quickly into enraged shouting until he felt faint enough to sit down and found he was too tired to get back on his feet.

Sleep was not on his, admittedly short, list of friends. Never really had been if Hux was willing to be honest with himself, and, in the privacy of this personal hell, he was. He could only barely remember the few times he’d slept truly easy. The way people sleep when there’s nothing to worry about, nothing pressing to be done, no one waiting for one to let his guard down so they could break off one more rung in the ladder. Hux himself was guilty –if one could call such a thing ‘guilt’ though the word implied a remorse he didn’t possess-- of being on both sides of the spectrum; rung and rung-breaker. Neither was much better than the other, and both required a large amount of discipline and vigilance.

He ran his hands through his hair, frustrated, and changed positions, collapsing onto the pile of blankets collected at the foot of his bed. He shifted, the blankets rough against the exposed skin at the back of his neck and upper arms.

Wait. Standard issue blankets were fleece designed to be soft and warm in equal measure. What was this? He pushed himself back up to sitting and ran his hands over the black fabric. Two layers. One was his usual blanket the other was just a large piece of fabric masquerading as one. The side turned up beneath his hands had a slightly rough, uneven feel like burlap. The inside lining was softer, but not by much; the insulated weather-enduring synthfabric they used on field training uniforms. The seam holding the layers together was new; rigid and machine-made. One short side of the large rectangle was had a few small holes near the corners, where a pair of cinching seams had been pulled loose to flatten it out. The other was worn down and frayed at the edge and the matting on the material came off red on his fingertips. The clay from Crait.

Ren’s cape?

Hux stared at the fabric bunched up in his hands and felt like he was holding an armful of large, hairy spiders. He felt along the long edges where it was singed in patches. He brought it closer to his eyes only to stop halfway when the smell of cinders and ozone hit him.

Definitely Ren’s cape.

What the fuck was this doing here? How hadn’t he noticed it sooner?

Surely Ren would have noticed it was gone. But if he had, he would have been back for it in the cycle and change Hux had been awake. Or made the medics take it from him during their visits. Would have wanted it back. Unless he left it on purpose.

Hux folded and unfolded the fabric in his hands as if some note would fall out. Ren’s paradoxically beautiful handwriting laughing at him for looking. Like something out of a trashy romance holo, only infinitely more obnoxious and cruel. _Found this, did you?_ He imagined it saying. _How bored and lonely you must be._

He threw the cape on the floor, laid back, and forced his eyes closed again.

He was used to loneliness. That shadowy sort of specter that lingered in the corners of rooms where the light didn’t quite reach. It slept beneath his bunk, a cold hand pressing up beneath the bed to remind him that it was there. It watched from under his desk like a loyal hound, sniffing the air and waiting, tail looped around his ankle. He’d taken comfort in its presence. Lonely meant space, meant freedom from scrutiny, meant he could take down his shield long enough to repair it. It meant silence and darkness and enough air to breathe for time.

Not to say he didn’t do fine with people. He did. Especially if those people couldn’t touch him; children,  civilians, all easy to handle and manage. In fact there were times when he downright enjoyed it. The first steps of his ascension had been in social circles. It behooved him to revisit those skills and keep them sharp. But then there were people like Ren. People like Snoke. People who didn’t fit in to the social order, who didn’t abide by the same cues, rules, and standards as everyone else. It was like playing chess with checker tiles. He could never remember which piece was which and he wasn’t allowed to label any of them.

He sat up again, rubbing his hands over his face, scratching at his skin. This was ridiculous. There were far more productive things Hux could be doing with his time than fidgeting about trying to sleep.

“I don’t understand.” He said to the dark, empty room, careful not to be too loud on the off-chance someone managed to hear him through the soundproof walls. Hux felt a little crazed for going this far, but that didn’t stop him. He wanted to yell at someone and he wasn’t so far in the hole as to yell at the medics for doing their jobs. “If you can hear me. Which I’m pretty damn sure you can.” He stared out into the black shadows that filled his office, imagining them coalescing into a humanoid shape. “What is your plan for all this? How am I even _remotely_ useful to you trapped in a room?”

No answer.

“You son of a bitch.” He growled and, letting his tired body buckle, fell face-first into his foam pillow. He’d missed the center of the bed, arm dangling off the edge, but didn’t bother to correct his position. For one manic moment, Hux considered getting up and jogging in place to get his heart rate up enough for the sedative trigger to kick. Luckily, his body resisted the ridiculous idea, content to stay where it was and just suffer.

Hux drifted, his body and mind exhausted but the malfunctioning chemical switchboard therein stubbornly refusing to power down. His eyes not wholly shut, his body not wholly relaxed, he hovered. Floated rather, tenuously balanced.

There were fingers in his hair and a soft click in his ear. A signal. One Armitage had learned to wait for most nights. It settled into his routine so well it was as if it had always been there. Nighttime inspection, lights out, the creaking of beds and murmured conversation, counting to twenty in silence, then the hand in his hair and the click in his ear, warm breath creeping under his jaw as his single bunk became a lot more crowded.

It made the days bearable for both of them. A mutually beneficial arrangement borne of his bunkmate not being able to climb the ladder to the top after skipping a training exercise to sneak off base and drink. He’d slipped into Armitage’s bunk, blitzed, and snuggled up close until Armitage had tumbled out and onto the cold concrete floor with a shout.

The next day the boy had apologized but said, under his breath, that it was a nice change of pace being warm for once and Armitage, face heating, had agreed. Originally, it had just been to sleep, back to back, sharing the two blankets and two pillows. A few hours and they’d return to standard before first light. Armitage usually in charge of the waking and kicking out since he stirred every few hours anyway.

But then things turned. In hindsight, Hux would shamelessly admit it was bound to happen; two fourteen-year-olds sharing a single bunk. What had Armitage expected? Them to just move on with their lives? Continue indefinitely as they were?

The first kiss had been clumsy. Fumbling and awkward in the dark and Hux couldn’t for the life of him remembered who initiated it. Their teeth clicked and Armitage had bumped his nose hard enough against a cheekbone it had sent him to sneezing.  The pair of them got better with practice.

“Gorgeous creature,” and to this day it left him bristly and warm. The ghosts of scarred, gentle fingers against Armitage’s scraped, raw skin.

Hux’s chest ached, remembering the day Brendol had found out. Had caught them together when their little tryst had moved out of the barracks and into everyday life. The commandant’s corps training exercise that followed. The shadow of his father blocking out the rare, warm Arkanis sunlight, leaving him fighting the urge to shiver as he lifted his arm. The world washed out as he took aim, blinking through the sting as he stared down the sight of his blaster. The agony of molten steel being poured into his spine as he pulled the trigger. To others, Brendol had called it a misfire. A malfunction in the blaster. It shouldn’t have been strong enough to kill the boy. It wasn’t Armitage’s fault for taking a good shot.

To Armitage he’d only said, “Learn from this _._ ”

Hux curled in on himself a little. The ghosting touches returned to comfort him, but they weren’t the same. They lacked that kindness; a thing that could only be born of mutual comfort. Now they were gentle, but insistent. Demanding an exchange. Something for something. Boons for favors. “Lovely thing,” the voices melted together, salt and grit that stung but never with enough pain to dissuade the behavior. “Obedient-“ The voice was singular, accent wrong, unnatural but familiar. A vocoder? No. There was a hand on his wrist, holding him in place. Cold metal pulling the heat from the back of his neck without ever really touching it.  _No, no, no_. “And all mine.”

He jolted hard enough to roll onto his back, the monitor wailing. He panted and groped around the bed, feeling nothing but his mattress and bed sheets, then his pillow.

Hux pressed it to his face with both hands and screamed his vocal cords ragged.

*~*~*

 

**Twenty-seven hours, fifty-three minutes remaining.**

Hux finally swallowed enough of his pride to admit to his boredom, to admit that his room was not equipped for long stays, and called in a request to the medbay for something to occupy him during his waking hours. The medics gave him a remedy in the form of old datapads; really no more than glorified books and terrible ones at that. Hux had only read the first few pages of each before he set to figuring out something else to do with them. They couldn’t connect to the ship’s network except through a terminal Hux no longer possessed, so that was out.

“Lights: eighty percent.”

He rolled out of bed, tired of fighting with sleep and pulled out his repair kit, still wedged in the back of his nightstand drawer. A few pieces of it were missing from use, but most of it was still there and still fully functional. He also picked up Ren’s cape from his bed, where it had gone after the BB-9E had tried to roll off with it when the cleaning droids had come in at the shift change. Hux wasn’t sure why he’d been so intent to save it, even going so far as to tear the seam in a corner wrenching it back from the droid. But, he had and he was going to put it to use.

The fabric wasn’t the right proportions to cover his desk, but it was enough to mark off a workspace and protect the smooth top from gouges and damage. He took his time getting it straight and even, inner lining side up, and smoothed it down. He unpacked the kit, stacked the datapads, and started with the one on top.

Though Hux had always had one hand in technology his whole life, he was a little rusty when it came to actual building and tinkering. His final foray into robotics had ended when his last academy roommate was shipped off to the engineering once and for all taking his pretty face and all his droid pieces with him. Hux’s eyes had turned to command then and many of his hobbies were left forgotten while Brendol loomed over Armitage’s shoulder once more. And then, even with his father’s death, the pressures of his work were such that idle activities rarely found footholds.

There wasn’t much he could do with these. They’d been stripped of all but their basest of assets. He reset two of them and popped the casing off the first one.

It killed time and it forced him to steady his hands. It kept him focused enough that he could pick at the contents of his tray without having to think about how _awful_ everything seemed to taste. He pulled the pads apart, put them back together, added pieces from one to another and looked at what could be removed and still leave a functioning device.

The parts cleared from Ren’s cape, Hux turned his attention to the monitor on his arm. Five vials, two half-full shined in the bright light; the white contrasting with the dark matte grey of the case. A line of tubing fed across the device and into his arm a little off center right along the display; the corners were held in place with dark medical tape. Prying the casing off pulled at his skin and the needle in his arm; fucker was on there, scratched and dented into place. He rubbed at the pink skin exposed by the jostled tape until the sting passed.

Running his thumb over the exposed wiring Hux took a deep breath. He could try to figure out a way to trigger the vials prematurely; none of the individual doses were lethal, even if given all at once. Though, mixed, they might be. He shook his head. He’d tried a poisoning and it hadn’t worked out. Last thing he wanted was to repeat the same mistake twice.

He couldn’t remove the device entirely, he knew that much. He could try to remove the vials. He decided against it, it would be too much trouble to explain it to the medics. But he _could_ pull out the tracker. He was on lockdown anyway, they probably wouldn’t even check. Wouldn’t care.

The tracking chip disconnected and set aside, his little monitor’s numbers flashed at him: Temp: 73,  BpM: 101,  O2: 94. Normal, high, normal. He watched that middle number tick up: 102-103-104. The longer he looked at it, the more he tried to force it go back down, the faster it rose: 105-108-110.

He remembered, hysterically, Ren’s monitor when they’d had to stick the knight in bacta after Starkiller for the wound in his side. Hux had stared at those numbers for hours. Committed them to memory. Anything but think about what he’d lost. What he would face when they arrived at the _Supremacy_. 73, 50, 97. 

The monitor started beeping again. Hux dug his nails into the strips of bacta on his palms, but it wasn’t enough. He needed another distraction. Some way to get the energy out.

He _needed_ to get out of here.

When he’d been given the datapads, he’d asked the medics if he could be allowed out to the training rooms. A little physical therapy could be good for him and the change of scenery would stop him from losing his mind. He didn’t say the second part out loud. The medics had promised him a regimen when he returned to duty, but implied they didn’t trust him enough to send him out on his own just yet with glassy far-off looks in their eyes.

Hux slid his chair over to the wall-mounted computer near his door. Picking locks wasn’t really his speed; ballistics were more his wheelhouse, but he’d picked up a trick or two sneaking out to hoard contraband with various roommates and coconspirators over the years. He’d befriended every person rumored to walk through walls. Always on the fringes of their mischief, but never involved unless he knew the outcomes could be spun in his favor. He watched over shoulders, practiced on his own time on the older models in the Academy; burning, shocking, and stabbing himself in the process. But, ultimately, rendering the allies and incidental teachers he’d gathered obsolete with time.

The _Finalizer_ ’s security panels were leaps and bounds more complicated than anything young Armitage had squared off against. But Hux, right now, had something in abundance that that boy had never managed to get: free time.

The monitor stopped beeping.

It took him hours to get around setting off the alarms. To make any sort of headway _at all_ save for just moving bits around and unravelling the wires to get a better look at the mechanisms hidden beneath. That work came in fits and starts, trying to avoid getting caught with his hair down by the droids or the medics. The deactivated patchwork datapads found a space on his nightstand, looking for all the world as if they were untouched and functional. Ren’s cape stashed under his usual blanket as to not raise questions and to keep it off the floor so the cleaning droids didn’t steal it when Hux wasn’t looking.

*~*~*

**Nine hours, thirty minutes remaining.**

Keeping his hands busy and his mind occupied with a task was the key to keeping that infernal beeping from chiseling away at his mind. The medics commented on the lack of alerts, on Hux’s improving health, seeing it as sign of progress and recovery. Hux didn’t argue with their assessment, the last thing he wanted was to give them cause to keep him longer.

He figured out how to get the door open sometime during alpha or beta shift judging by the lighting in the corridor. He didn’t let it open all that far before unplugging his little contraption making it sluggishly close. Stars forbid Ren had eyes on the security feed for this sector. Or, Hux considered, that might not be such a bad thing. Ren’s wrath was a hammer waiting to fall. Though, Hux supposed, he could do without his crew seeing him go out in this state. A little more dignity in his demise would be nice.

So he left the door closed for now, not certain if he’d even use his ability to escape or where he’d go if he did. It’s not like he’d be able to actually _do_ anything.

He disengaged his lockpick fully; a small cobbled together switchboard that allowed him to bypass the security codes and manually open the door that had taken hours to build and wasn’t all that safe to handle. Then, put the pieces of the wall-mounted computer back into place, covering up his work. The lockpick went in his nightstand, tucked into the, now empty, pack of cigarettes that was still, miraculously there. He’d been so relieved when he’d found it, even without the lighter, since chewing on the filters gave him something to do besides grind his teeth until his face went numb and his head felt primed.

The door conquered, the datapads hollowed out and repurposed to aid in that conquest, Hux looked for a new task, but found himself lacking. He stood in the doorway to his bedroom, staring down his reflection half expecting it to bark orders at him. He tapped his socked heel against the floor. Something to do. Something to do.

Ren’s cape, draped over the back of his chair caught his attention. The little rip along the lining seam, bits of thread sticking out. Hux frowned at it, running his fingers over the frayed edge, pinching the loose threads and pulling them.

Picking through his tool kit, Hux looked for something that might substitute as a sewing needle.

He sat on his bed, back to his mirror, the cape folded in his lap, bending a small piece of thick, sturdy metal wire into shape and cutting a point to it sharp enough to pierce the synthfabric. Using the point of the makeshift needle and his wire cutters, he started pulling out some of the existing, now useless, seam.

It felt so painfully domestic, sitting there attempting to sew even though he was laughably bad at it. He remembered Sloane’s fiancée attempting to teach him once when he’d met her the first time.

He’d been sixteen and given leave in the week leading up to the war games due to his status as competitor. Anyone in a command position was expected to take the time granted to seek advice from their superiors. To hone and formulate their strategy or just take the time to recharge and brace for impact, or, in the case of Armitage Hux, pick a fight with his rival on interplanetary television. _Take that, Tarkin, you pedigreed piece of shit._ A lot of eyes were on him and his strategy, he was one of the youngest commanders on record for the event  and was the very first one without a pre-existing field combat record.

The Academy war games were something of an event in the First Order. Televised via holonet to all their holdings, a time-honored tradition revived from the Empire showing the skill and tenacity of the next generation. Every existing school’s elite cadet corps would compete not only for prestige, but positions of influence. It was rumored that winners, the commanders in particular, could be granted an audience with the highest brass the military had to offer or, even better, the Supreme Leader himself.

Armitage had fought hard for his position; sending three people to the infirmary, blinding two and ultimately killing the third, in the process of trying to prove he was worth the investment. By the end, everyone was referring to him as the Dark Horse of Arkanis, much to Brendol’s dismay. Armitage wasn’t overly fond of the name himself, but kept it just because it made the vein in his father’s neck vibrate.

He had been content to stay at the academy, locked in his dorm pouring through books and holos of every battle the clone wars and the galactic civil war could offer him. But when he’d returned from his last training exercise, Sloane was outside his door. Before he could even salute she was waving at him to hurry up and get a bag packed for a few days’ trip before Brendol had time to figure out he’d left. “I’ve got money riding on you, son. I want you at your best.”

“I’m not your son.” He’d said and she’d laughed and demanded he get the lead out before she changed her mind. Confused and a little alarmed by the sudden change in his plan, but Sloane’s apparent faith in him serving as comfort, Armitage had complied.

She’d taken him to her home on-base; a small apartment with only four cramped rooms to its entire floorplan. He’d met her fiancée at the time, a short, unnaturally kind woman that seemed out of place in the admiral’s presence. The whole experience felt like something out of a dream; they’d spoken to him plainly, released him of the bonds of station and acted as if he were some out-of-touch nephew instead of a student and a soldier. It reminded him of Maratelle with her cousins’ children around the turn of the year when Brendol dragged him home for appearance’s sake. Though Armitage’s presence at those parties always seemed to do more harm than good for Brendol’s ego.

The missus, as Armitage had taken to calling her since her name had eluded him every moment after Sloane had introduced them, was a bubbly sort. Still was, last he heard. Always engaging in conversation, warm and inviting in a way that made his heart tie in a knot so tight he’d have to go at it with scissors later if he’d hoped to loosen it. She always touched him to get his attention; on the shoulder or the arm or on one occasion, the top of his head as she passed him, ruffling his hair. Over dinner, she asked him about his family; he declined to answer. She asked about his friends; he declined to answer. She asked him about his hobbies; he declined to answer. She’d furrowed her brow and looked on him such sympathy and concern Armitage could no longer meet her gaze. Sloane took over the conversation after that, talking business and strategy. Offering advice Armitage hadn’t asked for, but found he sorely needed once it was in the air.

They’d let him sleep on their couch and he slept so hard the missus had to shake him awake with promises of caf and reminders of the time.

The missus had also helped him pad out his dress uniform, to make him look more dignified and intimidating. He needed to make a good first impression if the whole of the First Order was going to take him seriously as an underdog. Which led to his first misadventure in sewing and he’d gotten so nervous that the small woman had snatched the fabric from his hands before he could harm it. She’d given him a swatch to work on while she did all the heavy lifting. He’d felt foolish at the time, frustrated that a task that she made look so simple eluded him. She’d only smiled at him and said it wouldn’t be fair if he was good at _everything_ he attempted and to leave some talent for the rest of the galaxy.

He’d sat on their couch all night, practicing until his fingers were bloody and his hands had cramped up but his stitching still wasn’t straight. Sloane took a pair of scissors to it and cut the whole swatch in half while it was still in his hands, demanding his focus.

Brendol had been furious when he returned to the academy to pick the brains of instructors and the library in equal measure, but Armitage never saw the business end of that fury. The Games were too close and Sloane ran interference on his behalf whenever she could, as did many of her allies. She had money riding on him after all.

Hux stabbed himself with the needle on accident. Bringing his bleeding finger to his mouth, he wondered what Sloane had used her winnings for. Realizing nearly twenty years later that he’d never bothered to ask.

*~*~*

**Two hours remaining.**

Snow, blood, and cinders. Cold threatening to eat through his boots to get at his ankles. Wind taking the lash to his face no matter how much he hunched his shoulders to lift his raised collar. Behind him the recovery team crunched through snow. Above him the dogfight raged on. Below his life-work crumbled to pieces. Ahead was a dark shape, stark against orange light and white snow. Ren making a sluggish, desperate bid at standing. Hux stilled a moment, knowing he should whistle for the recovery party. Knowing he didn’t have time for this. Watching.

Ren got to his knees and tried to push up further but as soon as his left leg was under him he buckled. The whole leg was numb now, Hux would learn later. And the concussion had done nothing for his balance. But, Ren still struggled on, dragging himself toward Hux a few more feet and trying again.

In life, Hux had whistled then. Ren hadn’t made a second bid at standing, the fight finally bled out of him, and it was safe for the troopers to collect him. As the bucket heads gathered, Hux had crossed the field and collected Ren’s saber. It had arrested his attention on the shuttle back to the _Finalizer_ , particularly the pieces that were broken or barely held together. While he’d waited for news on Ren’s condition outside the medbay, Hux had dismantled it a little. Trying to find the worst of the damage and see if he could get it to ignite again without exploding.

It was something to do.

He stopped, though, when he uncovered the cracked kyber crystal. _That_ was a disaster waiting to happen. Between the shit construction and the broken power source it was almost like Ren had _wanted_ to blow his hand off.

But, in this dream, Hux didn’t whistle and Ren kept up his refusal to surrender despite his quarry being long gone from his hunting ground. The earth moved beneath them, loose ground giving way to the fissure. They could fall in. The pair of them. And die on equal footing. Hux could shoot Ren if he refused to go down easy. The man was in no condition to stop his blaster bolt.

As if to prove that assessment wrong, Ren braced himself with his sword arm, lifted his free hand, and dragged Hux forward and down. Hux could see his face a moment; ragged and bloody slash disrupting his features and for a second Hux thought he saw fear concealed in the red lined gold of his eyes.

Hux was awake before he hit the snow feeling like he’d tumbled into it anyway. The position he’d fallen asleep in left him sore, his left arm numb and tingling, and his neck stiff from not bothering to reach for his pillow before the sedative had pulled him under. In the darkness, he thought he could still hear the roar of his dying planet.

“Lights: one hundred.” He croaked; wondering if he’d be heard over the sound.

The rough burlap of Ren’s cape was actually a small blessing beneath his itching, overheated cheek and Hux hated himself for it. Hated himself for a lot of things but this, specifically, seemed the best one to focus on right now. It was small, insignificant, and –best of all- easy to remedy.  He made no move to yet.  He’d rather have the smell of ozone and cinder and _oaf_ in his nose than the vomit and blood that usually came after the Starkiller nightmare. But he’d get to it when his distaste grew impossible to ignore. For now it was only a twitch in his upper lip. Manageable.

With the lights turned up all the way, Hux could see himself in the mirror. Half buried in the black fabric of Ren’s cape, his hair splayed out. A bright orange contrast out of place, like it was meant to be silver but had tarnished. The stubble on his face blended in a bit at this distance, in the bleariness of his eyes, softening his already somewhat feminine features. His left arm tucked under him, legs bent at the knee around the vicinity of his headboard. He stared at himself; at the wide expanses of skin washed out to render any freckles and hair nearly invisible. The bruise on his side was almost gone too; save for the darker portions that looked like fingerprints along his exposed side where his shirt had rucked up a bit.

His reflection stared back. Hux imagined a delay between every time he blinked and when the person across the room did. Wondered if he should say something. If they would. Almost wanted them to, just for something different. Something that wasn’t Brendol shouting at him.

He thought of his mother and found that he couldn’t remember her face. Just saw a neon pink constellation whenever he tried to conjure her up in his mind in a pattern similar to the bruises on his skin. There were probably pictures of her somewhere, was a familiar comfort rendered threadbare by thirty years of use, but he knew he’d never look for them.

Blocking out the thought and those damned stars came with its own set of challenges. Brendol in his ear, hissing threats when Armitage protested cutting his hair as a boy a swift backhand throwing him into silence. The insults that came when his physical aptitude test results came in. Or, perhaps worst of all, the unbridled _hatred_ that had come at the last family gathering of Maratelle’s that Hux had been invited to. When he’d been allowed to dress in something other than his uniform, let his hair down a little. Celebrate his imminent graduation and assignment. And had chosen to keep his hair loose, his clothes comfortable and, not entirely subconsciously, attempted to be, however briefly, the son he thought his _real_ mother had wanted to raise. It had been to spite Maratelle and all her reminders that he was a bastard; maybe take a lick at Brendol too, but it had backfired after everyone had left and Brendol had dragged Armitage into his office. “Why would you want to look like her, boy, she never even wanted you.”

Hux mouthed the words along as he heard Brendol’s voice say them.

Armitage had, admittedly, been a little drunk (his relationship with dinner’s bottle of Arkanian red had been a bit too engaging) when he returned fire: “She’d certainly wanted to keep me from you.” Did he think Armitage had forgotten that Brendol shot his mother? That he was too young to remember such a thing? Or did he not expect the lie to stick? Then, as he watched Brendol pour himself a drink and down it slowly, Armitage pressed his nails into his palm. He counted to eight; one for each finger, a full breath in between. He did less damage that way. It was more subtle. Brendol never noticed and it kept Armitage from losing his head and making things worse for himself.

Brendol had let it slip in one little sentence.

Maratelle had called it an affair. Hux, in hindsight, despite all their animosity, couldn’t blame her for that much. He would have done the same thing in her shoes. It was easier to admit one’s husband was a philanderer.

On some level, Armitage had known. Or, at the very least, had suspected. He might not have known his mother’s character, but he’d grown to know Maratelle, despite or perhaps because of her efforts for the contrary. He’d known she couldn’t have children, that her marriage was loveless, that no woman in the galaxy had wanted the man she’d laid claim to; her flag planted there for resources and resources alone. Brendol had been a colony to her. She had been a trophy to him. And if his own wife hadn’t wanted him, why would Armitage’s mother? He’d taken comfort in the idea that it might have been a mistake. There was still plausible doubt that Brendol would go so far. Armitage knew from experience that people could do exceptionally stupid things under the influence.

But Brendol took that comforting assumption from him that night. Armitage had exposed that little bit of softness in his behavior. Flaunted the chink in his armor like an idiot. Brendol honed on that weak point bent out of place, and took a hammer to it just like he had all the others.

Hux was ashamed to admit that he’d lost his temper. Completely and wholly the way Kylo Ren might have when Brendol set down his glass and let that damning sentence hang in the air. All Armitage could see was red. His fetid, stagnant anger boiling over before Armitage had even realized the pot was hot. He’d gone after Brendol, but was slowed down by alcohol and poor focus. It didn’t stop him. Nothing did. He’d taken a swing or two, clawed and bit when Brendol tried to put Armitage on the floor, attempting to use his superior height to his advantage. But Brendol had mass, experience, sobriety on his side. Kept taunting him even when Armitage was down. “Can’t even defend the woman’s honor. Hardly surprising from someone who can barely defend his own.”

Armitage had spit blood on Brendol’s expensive rug just to spite him and got kicked in the ribs for it.

“Sometimes I wonder why I even kept you alive.” Brendol picked him up by the scruff of the neck and corralled him toward the door.

“You didn’t,” Armitage snarled, hanging on to Brendol and twisting to look his father in the face. “I’m alive in spite of you. And I will continue to be.”

“Is that a threat?”

“Better learn to sleep with one eye open again, old man. You don’t have superiority anymore.”

“How dare you-“

Armitage laughed over whatever insult Brendol tacked on. “I will unwrite you from history,” it was the alcohol talking. “You will be nothing more than a sentence. A _footnote_ ,” It was his mother talking, “in the books historians will write about me. The only thing the galaxy will remember you for is the misfortune of being my sire.”

Brendol threw him into the hallway and slammed the door in his face.

When Hux opened his eyes again, his reflection looked alarmed. He blinked at himself a few times, wondering if she’d looked like him as he was now. Tired and drawn, battered and bruised, empty and lifeless. No, he decided after a long moment. She couldn’t have. She’d still had fire enough in her to square off with Brendol when he’d shown up at her door making demands. Hux’s was just embers now, not even enough to keep him warm at night.

Hux buried his face into the lump of fabric. That well of self-hatred bubbling up again, that he found _any_ shred of comfort in something that didn’t smell like standard detergent, plastic, and metal. But he did. It was pointless to lie to himself about it. There was something so innately _human_ about Ren’s things. Flawed. Imprecise. From his armor, to his saber, to his very face. Even his behavior was rough enough around the edges to catch on everything it just so happened to brush against. His attitude in desperate need of a buffing out Ren refused to partake in. How could Ren live like that, freely improvised and without any sort of guiding metric to fall into? Why would he _want_ to? The only thing emotion had ever gotten Armitage was hurt; the skin too easily pierced, the soft edges making his roll downhill all the faster.

Hux huffed out a sigh and when he tried to open his eyes, noticed his eyelids were sticking together, the lower ones wet. A patch of the black fabric was slightly darker than the rest of it. Disgusted, Hux forced himself to his knees and scrubbed at his face, swearing under his breath. He tried to sniff through his nose, collect himself with a shot of air straight to the brain, but he was congested to all hell now. His chest tightened suddenly enough to make him cough, and again when he drew another breath. It was like he couldn’t hold on to them.

He wrenched his eyes shut waiting for it to pass, but it didn’t. It just wound him up tighter. Every muscle he had drawing in together, making him shake. His face burned with heat and salt collecting on his skin. He ground his teeth together, breathing through them in a last-ditch effort to keep things even. But no one breath was enough. It felt like all he was doing was inhaling now. Just pulling in sharp, short gasp after sharp, short gasp, but never really getting any relief for his burning lungs and aching head.

Habit pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, not realizing that Ren’s cape was in his grip. It muffled the noise. It served a purpose. He could pretend to forget it was Ren’s, he’d mistaken it for something else, not- relied on it because it was worn and well-used in the days Ren had possessed it. Because it had belonged to a _person_. Because it had been left in his possession in such a way that one might be able to interpret it as a gift.

It took Hux a long time to pull himself together. Sniffling and letting Ren’s cape pool in his lap. He looked back at his reflection in the mirror, his eyes puffy and struggling to focus. His whole face red all the way up to his hairline and across to the shell of his ear. The beard was the only thing that stopped him from looking like a spoiled, petulant child throwing a tantrum.

Scowling at the too-familiar man in the mirror Hux pushed himself to his feet, Kylo’s – _Ren’s--_ cape still in hand. There were two rollers at the top of the door that fed into the track, one in either corner. The left most door slid in front of the right. Opening the left door a sliver, he fed the flatter, frayed edge of the cape through the small space between those rollers. Back around to the outside, he spread the fabric over the mirror, blocking the bulk of it with the dense material, and then slid the door fully open to cover the other one.

Much better.

Painfully awake, leaning with his back against the wall, Hux squinted at his chrono. 00:01. An hour into gamma shift. Only the minimum of people would be awake at this hour, concentrated in the important areas far from the sleeping quarters. He could gamble, leave now, and see what happened since it was, technically, his fourth day on leave. If Ren put forth arguments, Hux could counter them so long as he didn’t dive headlong into command. He would just have to avoid the bridge, and the medbay if he didn’t want the medics to swarm.

Hux turned and pulled his PT gear out of the closet.

*~*~*

**Forty-five minutes remaining.**

Hux had never walked through the _Finalizer_ out of uniform in all the years he’d had her. Usually, he changed in the gym’s locker rooms, no matter how empty the place was when he finally found the time to go. It felt unprofessional, in his personal opinion, he’s wasn’t a grunt. He had an air to maintain.

He’d debated putting on his uniform tonight, but that meant uncovering the mirror to check the lines and that just was not happening right now. Not to mention his boot hooks were still confiscated and he wasn’t about to fight with those bastards, nice as it would have been to have them.

In the safety of the training rooms’ corridor, Hux took several deep breaths and let himself soak in the silence. Only, it wasn’t silence. He flinched at the sound of impact echoing up the hallway. The soft _woof_ of a solid object hitting a training dummy. Instinctively, Hux followed the sound.

There was a large room at the end of the hall with a padded mat in the center of the floor used for sparring and CQC training. Phasma often reserved it for the FN corps. Slipping in, Hux saw a single combatant wielding a training baton at the far end of the room and going to town on a pair of dummies. Her blonde hair swept out of her face. Her sweats rolled up to the knee revealing the scarred skin of one calf, the uncovered metal of the other.

Hux straightened himself and put on his best game face, hoping his skin wasn’t still red enough to notice. “How’s the leg treating you?” He called from the other side of the mat, well out of range of any surprised swing and at such and angle that Phasma would have to intentionally throw her baton to hit him.

“I thought you,” Phasma huffed between blows as she started a new set. She was favoring the leg, listing to the right a little as she got into a rhythm. “were on lockdown until alpha.”

“If I was would I be here?”

She stopped and turned to look at him. The burn on her face had faded since he’d seen her in the tank; the prosthetic eye was a perfect match and blended in seamlessly. She was blinking more than normal though. “Wow. You look like shit.”

“Thanks.” He said blandly, stepping onto the mat.

“Medics say someone tried to kill you,” Phasma rested her baton on her shoulder. The tone she took belied her skepticism and prompted Hux for a correction he wasn’t going to give. She stared at him, waiting, and reminded Hux of the way Ren had locked his gaze into submission. He felt the ghost of Ren’s kiss and bit his tongue to get it to go away. “I can see it,” Phasma said, derisive. “Surprised they didn’t put you on a shuttle in irons.”

Hux sneered at her.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, pressing now, looking for sore spots and weak points.

Hux didn’t let her have it. “I needed a change of scenery. Wasn’t expecting to bump into you.”

Phasma put her hand to her chest, a look of mock hurt on her face, “And here I was thinking you might have actually wanted to check on me. How fool I feel.” She dropped the act like the unnecessary burden it was and looked him up and down.

“Why would I check on you if I knew you’d be okay?”

“Why do you keep responding to me with questions? It’s annoying.”

Hux rocked back on his heels.

“Say what you need to say, Red.” Phasma said, all pretense of politeness and station gone. “We’re alone. You don’t need to be coy.”

He liked Phasma. In a different life where they were both possessed of different druthers she might have made his life a little less lonely. Her company was the most enjoyable of any of the other people he’d been forced to suffer over the years. They hated the same things. Enjoyed similar things most of the time. She knew he had no unreasonable expectations of her, and she had none of him in return. She knew him well enough to decode his words quicker than anyone else, even men who could stare directly into his thoughts and pick through his emotions like a box of expensive candy. As it was she was a wall, an immovable object he could use to his greatest advantage. But right now, that object was weighing him down, pulling him under.

“We’re going to lose everything,” he confessed, too tired to bottle it up anymore. “We lost Starkiller when Ren abandoned his post. We might lose the Order too. What am I supposed to do? I can’t kill him. He’ll see me coming a mile off; throw me across the room like I’m nothing. And now… now the Order’s in the hands of,” he swallowed hard, avoiding the words, “because-“ They stuck in his throat.

“Because what.” Phasma wasn’t going to let him off easy. Never.

“Because I’m too weak to stop him.”

She scoffed, “Okay, Brendol.”

That genuinely hurt. Stung like alcohol on a cut. Hux didn’t know what he’d expected. Ideas maybe? Facts to counter his fear? Literally anything else. He sighed. Phasma wasn’t about to offer him comforts. “This isn’t why I came here.”

“Then why did you?”

“You weren’t supposed to be in here.”

“Then why approach me?” Interrogating him now.

Hux had no answers. He just relented and walked away. Or tried to. He heard Phasma’s quick steps behind him, the robotics giving her away against the soft mat. The impact of her baton against his hip knocked the breath out of him even though he rolled with the blow and let it sweep him from his feet.

“The _fuck_ , Phasma?” He snarled, trying to push himself back up, but not certain if he really wanted to.

She loomed over him and for a few heartbeats, Hux was Armitage again, staring into the face of his father. “Get up,” she said.

“Phasm-“

“Get. The fuck. Up.” When he didn’t move she hit him with the baton again. “Come at me!” She demanded, when he lifted his arm defensively, waiting for the next blow to land. “You fuckin’ coward. _Fight back!_ ” After a few strikes he couldn’t hold her off anymore and her baton cracked against his cheek. Even with the padding it hurt. In Phasma’s hands, anything could hurt.

A bright red spray of blood wet the dark grey of the training mat and Hux fought to breathe.

“Get up.”

The monitor in his arm was squealing again.

“Get up!”

Phasma was circling him.

“Why are you _still_ on the _floor_?”

Something snapped. Something old and pulled thin; a deep warp in bookshelf made from years of holding too much weight. Something delicate and made of glass but so out of reach as to have never seen harm’s path until now. It felt like acid in his chest, spreading out with every too hard beat of his heart, burning through the monitor on his arm, into the scars on his palm, the bruises pooling beneath his skin.

His doubt was gone. The grinding feeling in his head vanished, replaced with only a careful, precise ticking. How to get Phasma from her feet. How to get her weapon from her. She was bigger than him, taller, stronger, but there were always weak points. The armor had to join somewhere and the Order painted those spaces black to see them better.

He waited until she stepped down with her left leg, the robotics clicking as it tried to take her weight. With a shout, he pushed off from the mat, digging his shoulder into her side and forcing all of her weight and his own onto the poorly calibrated equipment. They both hit the hard, unforgiving floor beyond the edge of the mat.

Everything was a tangle after that. In training exercises and sparring Hux went through the motions. The individual things he’d been taught. Instructors chastised him for thinking too much. For not focusing on the present moment, and now as he tried to pin Phasma to the floor and take a swing at her face, he understood they’d meant.

He got one hit in before she ducked her head out of the way and clipped him on the side of the head to flip them.

Now, he couldn’t think about anything other than how _badly_ he wanted to hurt her. To _end_ this. To die trying. To claw at her, to bite down on something other than his own teeth. To pull chunks out of someone else to replace the pieces he’d lost in himself.

Phasma and Ren, they were _swords_ , assault blasters. Finely crafted, dangerous weapons of war designed to cut down rows and rows of enemies. Hux wasn’t a sword. He certainly wasn’t a blaster. He was more a utility knife, small, precise, multipurpose built for _survival_. Sure, he couldn’t throw his enemies across the room, either with his brain or his brawn, but he could pull the floor out from under them. He could surprise people. His whole life was spent shrouded in assumptions. They’d been his greatest advantage. The shadows he’d needed to hide in, waiting, biding his time. But perhaps, this time, he realized as he got an arm around Phasma’s neck, he’d waited too long. Just a hair. His opportunity for the element of surprise squandered and he was caught, barefaced and under-equipped by his target.

Pain danced like sparks across his skin but didn’t sink in, just bounced over and outward. Her elbow clipped his jaw and he felt his lip tear, tasted the blood as it pooled in his mouth, aimed for her good eye when he spit it out.

He wasn’t going to let himself be shot down like a dog. He’d go down clawing and snapping at the air like a monster.

The fight ended abruptly. Phasma suddenly at the opposite side of the mat from him, and his own body pinned to the floor under a massive weight. A few seconds of panting into the wet padding and the pressure abated. Hux lifted his throbbing head to see Kylo Ren, dressed in only a loose, sleeveless tunic and soft cloth pants, his hair a rumpled mess,  standing in the doorway lowering his arm. The small shadow of a medic shuffled in the hall behind him.

“Someone want to tell me what the hell is going on here?”

“No,” Phasma said and was sent skidding a little farther for her flippancy.

Hux tried to push himself up, only to find his left arm couldn’t support his weight. The needle in his monitor had jarred loose and blood was draining in deep red rivulets down his arm staining a new map of veins against his skin. The device itself was screeching now, all of the numbers on its display flashing bright red zeroes.

Both he and Phasma were made to sit on the edge of the mat like a pair of rowdy schoolchildren. The medic took his monitor out and patched up the puncture, not wanting to put a new one in and make it worse. Hux’s injuries were more severe than Phasma’s, his bruises deeper, the bloodloss making his head light, but the general had damaged most of her robotics and it was recommended she go straight to the medbay for repairs.

Phasma waved the medic off, unfazed. When Ren glared at her, she huffed right back, defiant. But, after a second, she forced herself to her feet to limp out.

The medic advised that it might be unwise for Hux to go back to work at alpha shift. Clearly something was still wrong with him that needed better treatment than the ship’s crew could provide. That he should be sent to a base and proper treatment. She stopped midsentence on the suggestion, her eyes going glassy like the other medics did when Hux had asked after the ship or made requests to leave.

“He’s fine to come back.” Ren said, his hand up and open behind her head.

“You’re fine,” She echoed to Hux.

Ren dropped his hand with a flick toward the door. “Leave.”

Hux blinked at her as she awkwardly stood and left the pair of them alone.

“How did you get out?” Ren asked, arms folded, making no move to give Hux the space to get to his feet.

“Lockpick.”

The look of surprise on Ren’s face was a treasure. “You- you built a lockpick. From what?”

“Datapads.” Hux rolled his right shoulder, trying to get some of the tension out of his neck. “I’m going to need you to let me back in now, though. Or change the code back. I hid the board in my monitor.”

Ren turned and looked at the door, clearly debating calling the medic back. He took Hux by the upper arm and hauled him to his feet.

They walked the empty halls in silence, Hux curling in on himself a little to ease some of the soreness in his side. Ren kept glancing at him, eyes lingering on his face just a second too long. He wanted to say something. Hux could feel it radiating off him like sunlight.

“Yes, Ren?”

“You couldn’t wait _three days_?”

Hux snorted and tasted blood on the back of his tongue. “You can’t just lock me out of my own ship, Ren. At least not while I’m still on the damn thing.”

Ren puffed up. “You couldn’t let it run without you and recover? Delegate your workload? That was _so_ difficult?”

“Yes. Actually.” Hux countered. “The ship isn’t supposed to be able to run without me. The fact that it does means I wasn’t doing my job correctly.”

Ren made a face and opened his mouth to respond but no words actually came out the first time. “That logic is flawed.”

“I know.” Hux was proud that his ship could run without him. That his team was so competent under his leadership they didn’t truly need him. That, when the time came for him to step down or move on, everything he’d worked for would be in safe hands. But, he wasn’t about to admit it out loud and certainly not to Ren. He glared at the man out of the corner of his eye, feeling the concentrated pulse of Ren in his thoughts. “Fuck off.”

They got to Hux’s quarters and Ren punched in to code, muttering that he’d have tech come in and reset it an hour before alpha shift. He caught Hux by the elbow as he tried to duck inside.

“You need to learn how to delegate,” Ren warned.

“And go the way of my predecessors? No sir.”

“I’m trying to _help_ you. Why are you fighting me?”

“If this is helping, I don’t want to know what hindering is.” That admission, though, was out of place. Hux lingered in his doorway without Ren’s forcing him to, curious. Why _was_ Ren trying to lighten his load? Or, more accurately, _claiming_ to try and lighten it. Ren had no reason to have anything but animosity for Hux, wasn’t afraid to force him into line. He could pin everything on Hux and there would be nothing the general could have done to stop him. Why, in his fucked up way, was Ren helping him?

Why had Ren stayed in Hux’s room after the poisoning for that matter? Why had he called the medics to save him? All the questions came flooding back as Hux tried to read Ren’s face. The man was so emotive, so open; easy to read but difficult to interpret like verbose, abstract poetry. Hux caught the subtle part in his lips, the way Ren’s eyes would flick back up whenever Hux blinked.

“I saved you,” Ren said, nostrils flaring but the scowl wasn’t deep enough to be Ren’s brand of anger. “and this is how you repay me? With disobedience and sarcasm?” His soft brown eyes couldn’t decide what part of Hux’s face they wanted to linger on and Hux, finally, recognized the look for what it was.

To test his theory, he raked his still bloody teeth over his split lower lip. Ren’s eyes locked on it. And there it was, finally, Ren’s throat, ripe for the biting, right between his teeth.

“You see, Ren,” Hux said. “Brendol saved me too.” With the name came every drop of hatred Hux had ever felt. He smiled at Ren, knowing the knight would poke in his thoughts, would sense it like he claimed to sense so many other things. Hux watched Ren swallow hard, his eyes darken.  “He learned to regret that decision. And, just between you and me, _Supreme Leader,_ ” Hux bit down as hard as he could on that imagined throat, fangs really sinking in. “I think you will too. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, fuck maybe not even a year from now. But you will.” He leaned in closer to Ren, half out the door, close enough to feel the knight’s body heat, “And by then it will be too late.”

“Is that a threat, general?” Ren’s voice was deeper, quieter, predatory.

“No.” Hux reached to the outside panel and quickstepped backwards into the room before the door could slam shut on him.

*~*~*

Phasma let herself in whistling to get his attention and drag him out of the refresher while he was still brushing his teeth. She was still without her armor, but her leg seemed to be supporting her weight better. Two of her fingers were in a splint, forcing her to awkwardly carry her cargo in one arm; a black mug and a satchel, but otherwise she seemed unharmed. She still had his blood on her cheek and light grey training shirt.

Hux had, once he was sure Ren had left him, gone right to his bed and was asleep before he hit the pillow, not waking until the droids came in with breakfast. He rose to bone-deep soreness and a clarity like he’d finally figured out how to reopen the blinds in his head and had just enough light to see by. He’d showered and dressed in all but his uniform jacket which lay next to Ren’s folded cape at the foot of his hastily made bed.

“Don’t tell the medics I brought you this,” Phasma said, handing him an insulated mug, steam still wafting out of the lid.

Hux popped it open, toothbrush between his fingers, and smelled caf. Without even a second’s pause, he brought the cup to his mouth and drank deeply. It was much too hot, black and bitter, mixing horribly with the toothpaste foam still in mouth, but Hux didn’t care. Three days of caffeine withdrawal overpowered good sense and before he knew it, he was tipping his head back and just pouring the horrid substance right down his throat.

“You disgust me,” Phasma laughed, watching him, “you are a disgrace to your bloodline.”

The mug empty, Hux cleared his throat and smiled at her. “Good.” He pointed to the satchel tucked under her arm. “Are those my sharps?”

“Trooper kit,” she let it roll down her forearm into her hand and offered it to him. “Yours won’t be released until alpha starts. I asked.”

Next best thing. He took the case and set the empty cup on his desk next to his still-covered breakfast tray before turning on his boot heel to return to the refresher. Phasma followed him, the thunking of her metal leg pausing a step in. “You get cloche?” She called after him, “Posh.”

“Keeps it warm because they know I won’t eat right away.” Hux replied over his shoulder.

“Or at all.”

Barking out a laugh, Hux set the kit on the edge of his counter and poked through it for a razor. He’d sorely missed his single bladed model, but the disposable ones would do for today. He could tidy it up between shifts. When he shut the door to the cabinet behind his mirror, canister of shave gel in hand, Phasma had appeared in the refresher doorway. She leaned her shoulder against the frame, picking bites off a pilfered yeast roll.

“Fight me,” she said when he scowled at her.

Hux’s eyes flicked to his own bruises. The scabbed cut in his lip and deep purpling along his cheekbone and swelling in the bridge of his nose. He ran his tongue over his teeth, gums protesting just like they had when he’d brushed them. “Once was enough I think.” He shook the canister.

“You held your own though,” she commented between bites. “And in a fair fight no less. Not something many in your weight class could say.”

Hux turned to look at her over his shoulder, “You were down one leg and your vision was impaired.”

“Like I said: fair.”

Hux snorted and tried to go back to his task. He hesitated, foam on his hands, staring down his reflection. The silence felt huge; like the cool metal of an interrogation chair against his back, locking him into place. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and waited for the feeling to pass. When he opened them, Phasma was watching his reflection in the mirror. How strange it was to see her bare face again, scar notwithstanding, and know where her eyes were pointed. To get another crack at reading her face.

Curiosity gnawed at him as he combed the foam through four days’ worth of unruliness. His eyes trained on Phasma’s impassive expression until he reached for his razor and the feeling was too much to ignore. “Might I ask you a question?”

Phasma tilted her head.

“If you had been with me instead of Ren when all that unpleasantness happened,” he watched her arch a brow, “would you have called the medics as he did?”

She pursed her lips and picked the last few bites off the roll. “Depends.”

Not the answer he’d been expecting. “On?” he prompted when she didn’t elaborate on her own.

She considered him, holding his gaze in the mirror. “Did you tell him you wanted to die?”

“No.”

“How long did it take him to figure it out?”

It took conscious effort on his part to not make a face at the question. She was expecting a certain type of answer, he knew; hunting for more information. Specifics on his method, he realized as he toyed with different answers and dragged the blade across his skin. He could try to avoid giving it to her. Could lie and probably get her to believe it if he tried hard enough. No. He didn’t want to play Phasma, not after last night. She’d find him out and kick his ass for real. But his pride was too big to swallow entirely without choking. “Longer than it would have taken you.”

“You son of a bitch. Last time I buy you a birthday present.” she said when it clicked, a smile playing under her features. It flattened out as she took her time weighing her options. “Yes. I think I would have.”

Hux didn’t even try to hide his surprise.

“If you had wanted to die, Red, you would have.” She explained, unprompted. “You were proving a point and I’ll be damned if I knowingly let you be right about anything ever again.”

“And if I had told you I wanted to?” his curiosity would be his undoing. “Would you have let me? Spread the word I was a coward?”

“No.” It was much quicker than her last answer. “Well, I would have let you die. Probably sped up the process. But I wouldn’t have smeared you.”

“Why?”

Now she was giving him a look like he was running out of free question passes. “There are few nobler deaths than at the hands of one’s greatest adversary.”

That rattled him into silence. His eyes drifted from Phasma’s reflection back to his own. She let him collect himself, no look of triumph on her face for having shaken him. If she felt triumph at all. “Thanks, P.” he said, so quiet he worried a second she might not hear him and ask him to say it again.

“Anytime, Red, so long as you don’t make a habit of it.”

The silence, sated, stopped attacking him long enough that he might shave in peace.

“What’s the plan?” she asked when he was wiping lingering bits of foam from his face.

“Assimilate Kylo Ren  If he truly wants to be Supreme Leader, we must make him one of us.”

“You think that’s possible.”

He met her skepticism head on. “With the right hammer and chisel even the most stubborn stones can be molded into the desired shape.” The corner of his mouth tipped up as he followed her back into his office. “Your little tumble didn’t teach you fear did it?”

“You insult me.” She growled. “What do you know?”

He picked up his jacket off the foot of his bed and put it on. “Nothing for certain yet. I have waters to test. A careful hand and I might be able to bring Ren to heel. But I can’t let him suspect me.”

“Sounds less like sculpting and more like a coup. I need to report you for treason?”

“Hardly.” Hux pulled the cuffs of his sleeves, letting his thumb brush over the embroidered stripes. “I realized something this morning. Something that might just save me when everything goes sideways, and it will go sideways. Ren’s involved.”

“Enlighten me.”

“I don’t want to be Supreme Leader.”

Phasma snorted. “Yes, Emperor seemed more your taste in title.”

Hux rolled his eyes, picking up Ren’s cloak and draping it over his arm. “No, I don’t want that either.”

“Since when?”

“Hear me out, Phasma. Ren has a target on his face Snoke didn’t have. People know who he is, what he looks like. People who want him dead.” She nodded, following. “I steal his position or take it fairly, it doesn’t matter, I get the same target on my face. I’m not like Ren, I can’t afford to put myself on display. One well aimed bowcaster bolt and I’m done for. The Order is done for.”

She smiled at him. “I’m in.”

“I thought you would be.”

*~*~*

Hux had tried to slip out of the bed unnoticed but Ren, the massive brute, held on a bit too tightly. “Oh, for fucks’ sake, Ren let me go. I have to get back to work.”

“No you don’t,” Ren grumbled into the back of his neck.

Why, oh why, had he thought getting into bed with an insufferable twat was a good idea? Hux braced the heel of his hand against Ren’s shoulder and pushed, but made no progress except to sink deeper into the embrace. Supreme idiot. “ _Ren._ ”

The knight tipped his head, looking up at him from his halo of dark hair. “What.”

“I have to leave. One of us has to go the ambassadors’ assembly and it sure as hell isn’t going to be you.”

“I could _demand_ you stay here.”

“That’s not how that works,” Hux squirmed in his grip and got a few inches of leeway. “You can’t just do whatever you want now.”

Ren turned a bit and Hux got a sliver more space between his bare skin and Ren’s. “Last I checked, I was the Supreme Leader. I don’t take orders from anyone. Least of all you.”

Hux sighed. “You are the most powerful man in the galaxy,” he said and waited for Ren to soften under the idea, “which means you answer to _it_.” The softness went away. “We have a duty to uphold. Both of us, but especially you. Promises to keep and all that. Now, if you _don’t_ _mind_ , I’d like to get back on that before people get testy. Myself included.”

“What’s the worst they could do?” Ren loosened his grip to one arm, but still didn’t let Hux go.

The general showed Ren his fangs, “That’s what the New Republic said about the First Order and look what happened to them. The powerful can only be so deaf, can only strike so many blows before their pets become monsters.”

Ren’s brow lowered. “I suppose. But this isn’t one person and our demands are not so unreasonable.”

“To us, perhaps.” Hux laughed, sitting up, Ren’s arm draped around his waist. He looked down at Ren in the dim light. The man was, despite Hux’s best efforts to convince himself otherwise, quite lovely to look upon. Still so young, so vicious in his pursuits, feral and untethered ready to take a running jump into the unknown if he needed to.

“When the New Republic levied its taxes,” Hux crooned, walking his chill fingers across Ren’s bare chest as he spoke, “demanded debts they knew the Empire could never afford, they tried to take everything as payment. Our homes, our armaments, our schools. But, when it demanded the Empire’s children, it gave them the Order.”

Ren’s face twitched, fighting a change in expression. Not perfect, but he was working on it. “And then it destroyed its debtor.” It sounded like he thought he understood.

But Hux shook his head, amused. How could Ren miss something so obvious? Was it willful or just denial? “No, not at first.” He leaned in closer, practically lying on the man, “We consumed their children while they looked on in horrified, powerless silence.” He smiled. And _oh_ that expression on Ren’s face was satisfying. The way those dark eyes widened, pulling at the scar on his face, showing his throat again no matter how many times Hux sank his teeth into it. “ _Then_ we destroyed them.” He leaned in a pressed  a kiss to the corner of Ren’s mouth before pushing off and rising from the bed to collect his things.

He was only watched as he left. The beast’s chain too short for pursuit now.

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a thing that happened. I've written scenes for other studies (one for Phasma and one for Rey specifically), but these take so long and so much labor idk when/if those will get done.
> 
> Really I just wanted to write this/ expand on Hux since _Death and Sleep_ was originally supposed to just be about him.


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